5th Grade- Symmetry Self Portraits

This was a quick, one day lesson. Many students get nervous or embarrassed when doing self portraits so I thought we would incorporate photographs. I took a head shot of each student during class one day, while we were working on another project. I enlarged the photos and printed them out. Next I cut all the pictures in half down the middle... some were more down the middle than others. If you do this project, try to get the student looking directly straight.

We glued our half photos to the left side of a white piece of paper. I showed them to measure facial proportions with their fingers on the photo side, and transfer them to the drawing side. We did this by marking little dots. Next we stared a line drawing. We drew in eyes, nose, mouth, head shape, outline of hair, neck, and shirt. After most students seemed like they were finished with the line drawing, I introduced them to shading and how to use an ebony pencil. I liked this more than the celebrity portrait because students really had to think about symmetry and proportions because they did not get to see the other half of their face. Here are some of the finished products.